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Post by CharlesX on Aug 26, 2023 18:02:53 GMT
This is referring to the brief trend in FF, I think it was for a few Green books, where there would be several pre-generated heroes in the back, with colourful two-paragraph descriptions. I didn't use them myself, but both the concept and the writing seemed appealling; I don't think it'd work for every gamebook. Possibly work better particularly for bigger gamebooks.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 26, 2023 18:35:35 GMT
The problem is they were generally a character with a high Skill, one with a high Stamina and one with a high Luck. But the FF system being what it is, why would you even consider the latter two?
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 26, 2023 18:49:42 GMT
The problem is they were generally a character with a high Skill, one with a high Stamina and one with a high Luck. But the FF system being what it is, why would you even consider the latter two? They were always a bit of a gimmick - I'd think I might play each character once and then no more. Frankly I'd get as much if not more from reading the descriptions than I might do from playing them. |
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Post by a moderator on Aug 26, 2023 18:51:05 GMT
This is referring to the brief trend in FF, I think it was for a few Green books, where there would be several pre-generated heroes in the back, with colourful two-paragraph descriptions. More than just 'a few Green books'. At least the first 10 of the second Wizard Books run had pre-generated characters in the back. Maybe more, but those (and Blood, which unsurprisingly doesn't bother giving a choice) are the only books in that set of which I have copies, so I don't know when the pregens were dropped. |
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 26, 2023 19:08:23 GMT
This is referring to the brief trend in FF, I think it was for a few Green books, where there would be several pre-generated heroes in the back, with colourful two-paragraph descriptions. More than just 'a few Green books'. At least the first 10 of the second Wizard Books run had pre-generated characters in the back. Maybe more, but those (and Blood, which unsurprisingly doesn't bother giving a choice) are the only books in that set of which I have copies, so I don't know when the pregens were dropped. I didn't know that, mainly buying (new) Green books rather than reprints from the second Wizard run, but I don't think this will be a deal-breaker for me or most people. |
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Post by hallucination on Aug 26, 2023 19:52:13 GMT
I went for sometimes. Don’t have a problem with it in principle. For gamebooks with well balanced gameplay, it could offer a potentially fun challenge, to beat the book with a mix of pregens. But for a Livingstonesque adventure, i agree the high skill pregen would be the no-brainer.
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Post by misomiso on Aug 26, 2023 21:47:27 GMT
I think the idea of them is great, but often practically the heroes they have given you are not that suitable.
There should really be three options:
1) The Standard Hero (eg Sk 9, Stam 20, Luck 11)
2) The 'Easy mode' Hero (eg Sk 11, Stam 18, Luck 10)
3) The difficult mode Hero (eg Sk 8, Stam 15, Luck 9)
`At the moment they sometimes give the Luck hero or Skill hero, and it doesn't really work.
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Post by misomiso on Aug 26, 2023 21:51:48 GMT
I actually think Jonathan Green's pregenerated Characters for his Oz books are quite good. I don't like the different paths through the main paths that he has, but all the characters have something different about them (tin man is very tough and hits harder, scarecrow can heal etc).
However giving heroes a special ability means designing around that.
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Post by tyrion on Aug 26, 2023 22:36:03 GMT
I like that one of the pregens in night if the necromancer is the hero from knights of doom.
In ancient silence, which I wrote for Dragon Warriors, I provided two pregens which you had to use (one a knight, the other a sorcerer).
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679 
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 26, 2023 23:23:23 GMT
Pre-gen heroes should only exist if they are actually viable. Otherwise, it'll just be a waste of time and perhaps frustrating for new readers.
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Post by a moderator on Aug 27, 2023 1:08:58 GMT
Pre-gen heroes should only exist if they are actually viable. Otherwise, it'll just be a waste of time and perhaps frustrating for new readers. There are some obvious no-hopers in a few of the books. Characters with single figure Skill scores in Deathtrap Dungeon, Bloodbones and Eye of the Dragon, and even one with just 8 Fear in House of Hell. |
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Post by misomiso on Aug 27, 2023 7:43:40 GMT
Pre-gen heroes should only exist if they are actually viable. Otherwise, it'll just be a waste of time and perhaps frustrating for new readers. There are some obvious no-hopers in a few of the books. Characters with single figure Skill scores in Deathtrap Dungeon, Bloodbones and Eye of the Dragon, and even one with just 8 Fear in House of Hell. Yes for something like DeathTrap Dungeon I think you would need something like... Standard Hero (Sk 11, Stam 22, Luck 11) 'Easyier Hero (Sk 12, Stam 18, Luck 10) Harder Hero (Sk 10, Stam 20, Luck 12)
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Aug 27, 2023 18:37:37 GMT
Pre-gen heroes should only exist if they are actually viable. Otherwise, it'll just be a waste of time and perhaps frustrating for new readers. There are some obvious no-hopers in a few of the books. Characters with single figure Skill scores in Deathtrap Dungeon, Bloodbones and Eye of the Dragon, and even one with just 8 Fear in House of Hell. From this we assume that whoever drew up the characters did not read and play through the books with them? So they were a pointless gimmick. |
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 27, 2023 19:42:19 GMT
There are some obvious no-hopers in a few of the books. Characters with single figure Skill scores in Deathtrap Dungeon, Bloodbones and Eye of the Dragon, and even one with just 8 Fear in House of Hell. From this we assume that whoever drew up the characters did not read and play through the books with them? So they were a pointless gimmick. It seems they were with FF. With Virtual Reality their pregen characters had different Life points, possessions and gold, and even numbers of Skills. But that's a diceless system, so perhaps that's a different ball-game. I definitely recall trying some pregen characters in VR, including some of the harder ones who's Skills were mainly Lore, but I don't remember whether the gameplay was 'hard\unbalanced' or 'broken'.
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sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,679
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
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Post by sylas on Aug 27, 2023 22:38:18 GMT
From this we assume that whoever drew up the characters did not read and play through the books with them? So they were a pointless gimmick. It seems they were with FF. With Virtual Reality their pregen characters had different Life points, possessions and gold, and even numbers of Skills. But that's a diceless system, so perhaps that's a different ball-game. I definitely recall trying some pregen characters in VR, including some of the harder ones who's Skills were mainly Lore, but I don't remember whether the gameplay was 'hard\unbalanced' or 'broken'.
In VR it was probably easier with certain characters but I think they were all viable. If you were making your own character, any combination of Skills was also viable which is really impressive. The only book I'm not sure about is Green Blood which I've played the least. |
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Post by a moderator on Aug 27, 2023 22:56:06 GMT
From this we assume that whoever drew up the characters did not read and play through the books with them? So they were a pointless gimmick. It seems they were with FF. With Virtual Reality their pregen characters had different Life points, possessions and gold, and even numbers of Skills. But that's a diceless system, so perhaps that's a different ball-game. I definitely recall trying some pregen characters in VR, including some of the harder ones who's Skills were mainly Lore, but I don't remember whether the gameplay was 'hard\unbalanced' or 'broken'.
As I recall, Dave Morris has stated that he tried to make sure that Green Blood could be beaten with every one of the pregenerated characters (so long as the correct choices were made), and I think it unlikely that, having gone to that effort with Mark Smith's text, he wouldn't have been similarly scrupulous with his own books for the range. AIUI, Mark Smith vetoed the bulk of the edits Dave Morris wanted to make to The Coils of Hate, which goes some way towards explaining why that book is such a broken mess. It's not quite as unplayable as my blog entry on Coils made it out to be, but my adventure-ending error was largely the fault of the appallingly sloppy structuring of a section. If you're going to make the use of a specific Skill optional, say
not
ETA: And sylas has posted with more information on the topic while I was fine-tuning my reply. Such is life. |
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 28, 2023 7:46:16 GMT
Greenspine's link to his own blog\review of Coils seems to work fine, but the link in the review to Per Jorner's review just sent me to Yahoo!'s main search page. Just as well the VR reviews are in the VR section of this forum.
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Post by a moderator on Aug 28, 2023 13:53:34 GMT
The main reason I archived those of Per's reviews that I could here is because the Yahoo! groups where they were originally posted are no longer accessible (and may well have been deleted).
I should probably redirect that link.
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